Small factions going big - a good Idea? - Introduction

 If you followed my blog so far, you might have noticed a tendency regarding the armies I play, collect and write about. I am drawn to the ones that are not mainstream, popular or in general not too often played. Or rather, this is a side effect and just coincidence to align with what I like. It depends on the look, the play style, their lore etc, etc. Nonetheless I am playing and thinking a lot about armies which are, for one reason or another, not so popular. And they all have something in common - very limited profile and miniature selection and/or coupled to that, a a limited number of ways to scale and/or play styles.

You maybe can relate - when you really like a faction but are aware of its limitation, you think about how it could/should be expanded by GW to make it more usable - e.g. my thoughts on how to expand Numenor. 

But while it was really fun to come up with new profiles, I also thought of the other smaller factions and that probably for each of them, there are people who wanna see it expanded. And while saying something like - "Numenor needs more heroes and cavalry" - is absolutely valid to make them more competitive, it also raises a more general question: Should every faction in MESBG be expanded to levels of Mordor/Isengart/Minas Tirith etc or is there a very good reason behind why specific small factions are totally fine the way they currently are?

So the plan for this new series - "Small factions going big - a good idea?"  - was born. I want to go through small factions in MESBG and analyze them for the following points:

• Current status 
• Drawbacks as a small faction
• Does the limitation fit in with the lore?
• Is there a good design reason behind the current status?
• Should the faction be expanded?

I hope this will get interesting and bring some new perspectives and attention to the smaller factions in our game.

The Castellan keeps his watch and happy hobbying until the next time =)